Now, this film is available on YouTube, but I'm not posting a link in case someone somewhere wrecks your chances to watch it. It's a massive epic film called 'Pharaoh' and it was made in Poland and Uzbechistan in 1966. I didn't realise this until I'd watched it, and was convinced it was only a few years old, and probably shot in Egypt. The level of authenticity is stunning: unlike most such movies today that are only too obviously all made on the same sets in Morocco or Tunisia, this one looks totally real. It has the necessary cast of thousands, amazing spooky hairstyles, and ... well, I just wonder where it's been for all this time:
It has a good story, and a fine study of politics and youth and power. It's fresh and slightly depressing, and was nominated for a foreign film oscar. The music is avante-guarde, and the only thing that betrays the date.
'Anyone familiar with this one? Scorsese is a fan.
Yes, I'm familiar with Pharaoh since the late 1990s, when Facets Video in Chicago was releasing films directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz onto VHS tapes.
I still own my VHS of Pharaoh.
I agree that Pharaoh looks fresh because of Kawalerowicz's realistic approach, but this film is nowhere as close to the other 2 Kawalerowicz titles on my favorite 100 films list: Mother Joan Of The Angels (1960) and Night Train (1959).
Mother Joan Of The Angels is a much preferable version of similar material tackled by Ken Russell's The Devils, and this Kawalerowicz fave ranks as #30 on my favorite 100.
Not too far down on my list is Pociag (Night Train), my 44th favorite film, which is a very Bergmanesque offering by Kawalerowicz about dislocated personalities on board a train for a (so-called) Holiday excursion.
All things considered, 2 films by Kawalerowicz that position within my Top 50 solidify Kawalerowicz as the finest Polish film director. Roman Polanski is another favorite Pole, but he's more international and departed from the Polish film industry early in his career.
Pharaoh is good, IMO, but not the zenith of what Kawalerowicz had accomplished ...
I remember reading about PHARAOH at the time of its release, but, even though it was nominated for an Oscar, I don't recall it ever getting much of a release, if at all. Maybe because it lost the Oscar.
I saw it at one point, in a press screening in New York, accompanying my older brother, who was a film critic at the time. I recall it being long and draggy, with none of the Hollywood pacing or narrative, let alone music, that I was used to in films depicting the ancient world.
It's worth looking at, but more as a curiosity than expecting a lost gem.
Yes, this is a fascinating film. Watching it, you feel almost as if you've landed on another planet -- which is probably akin to the actual experience of being transported to such a different culture. The opening episode -- a massive canal project being challenged by priestly opposition -- is particularly startling. I admit to drifting off as the story wore on, but I've never forgotten that scene.
I remember a big (cover?) story about the movie in Films and Filming, but I was unaware that it ever had a U.S. release. Maybe just festival showings? I caught it years later at a MOMA screening.
Never heard of the film until this thread. After watching the first hour online yesterday I was so impressed I ordered the DVD. Thanks to WILLIAMDMCCRUM for posting.
Never heard of the film until this thread. After watching the first hour online yesterday I was so impressed I ordered the DVD. Thanks to WILLIAMDMCCRUM for posting.
The opening episode -- a massive canal project being challenged by priestly opposition -- is particularly startling. I admit to drifting off as the story wore on, but I've never forgotten that scene.
Yes, it's a military manoeuvre with hundreds of extras looking just like Egyptian soldiers, none of yer DeMille 1920s kitsch costumes. The priests halt the advance because the scarabs are rolling dung, and fill in a poor man's canal that took years to dig.
The wigs are amazing too. I'd bet DeBosio's 'Moses the Lawgiver' took a leaf out of this as regards influences.
I suppose the pre-Solidarnocs story about society and priesthoods and kings etc. all fitted around any eastern bloc scruples of the day. It's a great tale anyhow, even if the eclipse is a little laboured as a device, but that's probably in the novel.
I'm afraid I hop, skip and jumped my way through it. I do see what you mean about the film appearing to come from a closer time period than 1966. I wonder if Kubrick got some ideas for 2001 from seeing it? For instance, the solar eclipse is never depicted directly - it is suggested. The lighting on Pharaoh is directional and we see him fade into shadow at the start of the event, then emerge into the light at the end of it.
Needless to say, this "trailer" is a modern concoction for today's media consumers -- the kind of viewers who have the attention span of a housefly. It conveys nothing of the mood and pacing of the film. And whatever the original music was like, it certainly bore no resemblance to amped-up commercial hype of the trailer music. (And how can a commercial advertisement claim "fair use"?)
The color is far more vivid than what I remember from that museum screening. Somebody appears to have done a great restoration job.
Never heard of the film until this thread. After watching the first hour online yesterday I was so impressed I ordered the DVD. Thanks to WILLIAMDMCCRUM for posting.
And of course ... the famous and devastatingly beautiful Barbara Brylska from Russian movies as Kama (good pun on fate!) the vamp:
Actually all four of the ladies in this film are ... connoisseur material ...
The film has all these little touches that are familiar from the tomb paintings and papyri ... like the baskets of severed hands from the defeated Libyan dead, and the wonderful wig structure.
One artistic decision seems to have been to use only very slim actors and actresses: the Egyptian costume flatters that, and doesn't cope with even a pick of fat.
There's a touch of the old Polish church/state tension and some class politics in the film too ... the priests are aligned to the young Pharaoh's mother, and the eclipse ties in with that symbolically, sun obscured by moon of course, his downfall is women and priests.
And there's not a SINGLE silly starched square dishcloth head-dress anywhere, not one. And there never was. A misinterpretation of the illustrations. Those damned head-dresses ruin DeMille's Egypt and belong squarely with Theda Bara.
